Android App Review: Instagram

Being a long time iOS Instagram user, I was already captivated by the app and its ability to provide an audience for the quirky life moments I was able to capture on my smartphone. While other social networks, like Facebook, allow their users to share status updates, links, and videos, they also seem to be more and more cluttered with ads, games, and other nonsense these days.

What Instagram did was boil down the best part of most social networks out there today and has simplified everything for the user. Instagram only allows you to share photos, and only the photos you’ve taken with your smartphone (or tablet). There is no web interface to upload photos too, so everything is confined right down to your mobile device. One of the coolest parts of the app is that only square shots are provided, which gives the whole experience a simplistic and uncluttered feel.

Admittedly, I photo document random objects, sunrises, and oddities that occur in my everyday life and Instagram provides an audience for all of those photos that most people may not normally be interested in. On top of just capturing and being able to instantly share these photos Instagram has integrated 17 photo filter effects right in the application which gives the user an artistic license.

Instagram was solely available on the iOS platform giving it an air of exclusivity for iPhone users, but when the company released their Android app they promised a superior experience for Android users. I’m already a fan of Instagram for iOS so I had to get my hands on the Android version to see myself if it really was a better experience.

App overview: A photo sharing app which allows the user the ability to capture and enhance smartphone photos with one of 17 different Instagram photo filter effects. The user’s photos are shared with followers through Instagram and other social networks in a simplistic and streamlined interface.

How it works: One of the first things I noticed was while Instagram allows you to capture photos direct from the iPhone app, if you’re using an Android device or choosing a shot already stored on your device, you need to crop it. As it currently stands for Android, Instagram will only let you play around with 1:1 images. Once you’ve cropped the image, you can then choose a visual filter from the app to add to your photo. You can also choose if you want to add an border to the photo (depending on the filter) add a brightness/glare effect, and rotate the image around at 0, 90, 180, or 270 degrees.

I love that if you want to post just a raw photo you can, and if you want to add a filter you can. You can see the image change through each filter and you always have the option to go back to the original photo. After you’ve selected the filter, you then have the option to add a caption, a geographical tag, or instantly share the image with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Tumblr. The emphasis being on option, you don’t have to share the photo with any other site as the photo will instantly appear in your followers feeds for them to see.

Filters

Normal: Effect: This is the picture as captured without adding a filter. Instagram users will often add the hashtag  #nofilter.

X-Pro II: Effect: Warm, saturated tones with an emphasis on aqua and green colors

Earlybird Effect: Faded, blurred colors with an emphasis on yellow and beige colors (this is one of my person favorite filters)

Lomo-fi Effect: Dreamy, a little blurry, with an emphasis on saturated yellow and green colors

Sutro Effect: Almost a sepia effect, with an emphasis on purple and brown colors

Toaster Effect: High exposure, with vignetting around the corner of the photo

Brannan Effect: Low-key, with an emphasis on gray and green colors

Valencia Effect: Realistic contrast, with added gray and brown overtones

Inkwell Effect: Black-and-white, high-contrast

Walden Effect: Washed-out color with a slight blue overtone

Hefe Effect: Slightly blurry, with an emphasis on yellow and gold colors

Nashville Effect: Sharpened images with a slightly pinkish tint, framed with a film strip border (also one of my personal favorite filters)

1977 Effect: Enhanced nostalgic feel

Lord Kelvin Effect: Super-saturated, retro feel with a distinctive scratchy border

Dashboard

The Android dashboard for the app is beautifully done. The home icon displays a feed of photos posted by all of the people you follow. The star icon displays a montage of photos who have made it to the popular page. There are always a wide variety of artsy, odd, and artistic photos that make it to popular status. The camera icon is intuitively placed in the center for easy image capture directly from the application itself. The heart icon displays a notification bar of how many people have liked your photos, commented on them, and how many new followers you’ve acquired. The feed icon displays options to find friends, invite friends, or search Instagram. You also have the option of viewing your own photos and photos you’ve liked.

Conclusion: Instagram for Android leaves little to complain about. If I had a wish list I would ask for the ability to view the app in landscape mode, the ability to add more than one filter to the same photo for a combined effect, and possibly a few more effects that would give me the option of creating a photo montage splitting the image, or adding things like text to an image. Right now I have to first upload an image to other third-party photo editing sites like PicStich, save the image, and then upload it to Instagram to add an Instagram filter. Other than those minor grievances I give Instagram 4 out 5 stars for Android and would recommend it to everyone. So, what are you waiting for? Get on it already!

Instagram is available for free in the Google Play Store.